Icebound

Chapter 3

The northern lights flashed across the sky like a new sun. Anyu gaped at them as the streams of blue and yellow and pink twisted across the black canvas. It reminded her of when she was little and would stare entranced as her grandmother lit the kindling to start a fire. The little twigs curled in on themselves as they burned. It had always looked to Anyu as if they were writhing in pain.

She felt like curling up into a ball herself and giving in to desperation. How could she have been so foolish? Her one chance at getting home gone, all because she had let a simple trick get the best of her. She gritted her teeth, her chest hot with shame.

A noise suddenly sounded in the distance, some cross between a growl and a scream. Anyu shuddered, this time not from the bitter cold, and urged Shesh to go faster.

Shesh mewled pitifully. She could feel him shivering under her now. Desperation clawed away at the inside her chest, threatening to let the fear overwhelm her. She held it back, just barely.

She looked around their surroundings once again. The night was too black, the snow too thick, and the ice formations too together for her to see more than five feet away. But it didn't matter. She knew what she would find even if she could see: an endless icy wasteland, waiting for them to die.

Anyu slid off Shesh's back. Without carrying her weight he might last just a little bit longer. She silently wondered to herself why she even bothered thinking ahead, taking such precautions if the end result would just be the same. 

She began to walk forward on wobbly legs. She hadn't been able to feel her toes for a while now, and now her whole left foot was beginning to go numb. In a short time, frost bite would start the set in.

Suddenly, they came upon a large ice formation, the massive size of the thing looming over them in the darkness. Perhaps it had once been a mighty glacier, now reduced to the size of a whale. They would have to walk around it. Anyu walked next to the edge of the ice block, leaning on it for support and focusing on putting one foot after another. Her hands were so numb that she didn't notice at first, but after several minutes she paused, pulling on Shesh's reins to halt him. The material was much too smooth to be any kind of natural ice formation. In fact, now that she examined it, it was clear that it wasn't ice at all. Instead of a subtle luminescence the material was a dull, yellowish white color, like polar bear fur that had grown old and worn. Almost like... 

Anyu froze in surprise and wonder as the realization dawned upon her. It was ivory. Somehow, the entire structure had been made of hard, sleek ivory.

She suddenly felt the enormity of her own weakness, her own insignificance. What kind of beast would be this large, she wondered, to be able to carve such a massive structure from its bones?

 But she did not have time to ponder such questions now. Behind her, Shesh shivered again, and her own teeth continued to chatter. There was no time to think of anything other than shelter.

Anyu moved along the edge of the ivory structure, feeling her hand along the smooth wall as she did. There it was. A slight indented outline, indicating a door. With a few hard shoves and some help from Shesh's antlers, the doorway swung open. Anyu hesitated. The doorway led to an endless black abyss, nothing visible on the other side. It could be a cave of mischievous Ijiraqs. It could be an old witch, eager to make her into a nice warm stew. But then from behind her in the cold Shesh nudged her back pleadingly and Anyu realized that she didn't have a choice.

They plunged into the darkness.